December 2005

Thursday, 22 December 2005

my little contribution to modern holiday songs, to sing to the tune of my favorite traditional one, "o holy night" (seriously, no disrespect intended to the faith):

o holy crap!i'm not ready for this weekend.it is the time that we see my family.long have i tried to ready myself for this,knitting, packing, and wrapping, but in vain it feels i've worked.the day will come when we'll pack the car to see themand i will find i'm not even close to there.my heart races! o hear how it is pounding!o time of year i dread, the time when stress descends.o stress, o stress, o stress, why must you come?o stress, o stress, o stress, why must you come?

knitted all year, and finished one gift last year--but now i don't think i can find that one now!bought other things but will they be enough?and everything still needs to be wrapped up!and cat and dog hair seem to get in everything i wrap.fur everywhere! no matter how i vacuum!o fur everywhere, everywhere it seems to go!o fur everywhere, everywhere it seems to go!

and scheduling everyone who can't get it togetherto be off work when we need them to be!o why can't the world revolve around my needs?i just want what i want when i want how i want it!is that so much to ask? i mean, really? shuh, as if!o me me me me my needs it's all about meo me me me me my needs it's all about me

Sunday, 11 December 2005

Sunday, 04 December 2005

I guess you could say I've been working a lot. In the last month, I've edited (from raw manuscript by eight authors to formatted and published online) one book and edited (from raw manuscript to completion of initial edit for author review) a second book. That's a lot of work--my billable hours go through December 15 (read: I billed six weeks of work in four weeks, in addition to working significant unbillable hours).But none of that is the point of this post; it's merely a sad explanation of my absence from the blog.The point of the post is manners. Characteristically, as I have opinions about most things, I have no shortage of opinions about manners. So I end up in conversations about them with people fairly often (fortunately, it's often after people have actually asked my opinion).So imagine my delight this morning when I read in my December/January issue of Real Simple (thank goodness for magazines and catalogs, or I'd never read anything outside of work, I'm afraid) this little excerpt from Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life (or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door) (a book that if I thought I'd make the time to read, I'd simple have to own, even if only for the brilliantly penned title). The author, Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, a title I wouldn't have punctuated that way, but that's another blog entry altogether), writes, "Manners are about showing consideration and using empathy. But they are also about being connected to a common good; they are about being better. Respect and consideration are traditionally due to people for all sorts of reasons, some big some small. Here are 20 (most lapsed) reasons to show special politeness to other people.1. They are older.2. They know more than you do.3. They know less than you do.4. They got here first.5. They have educational qualifications in the subject under discussion.6. You are in their house.7. They once helped you financially.8. They have been good to you all your life. 9. They are less fortunate than you.10. They have achieved special status in the wider world.11. You are serving them in a shop.12. They are in the right.13. They are your boss.14. They work for you.15. They are a policeman/teacher/doctor/judge.16. They are in need.17. They are doing you a favor.18. They paid for the tickets.19. You phoned them, not the other way round.20. They have a menial job."Lest you think, dear reader, that these are the only occasions on which manners matter, note the overarching theme here. They require that you pay attention to the person to whom you are speaking and notice things about them. But I think Truss would agree with me: regardless of whether you are in one of these situations or not, manners are still a good thing. They are, as she said, about respect and consideration. If nothing else, pretend you're practicing for using them in one of the other 20 situations.I just found myself thinking about manners a lot the last couple of years, as I surrounded myself with women planning their weddings and invoking etiquette as an excuse to expect guests to spend, as a rule of thumb, the same amount of money on their wedding gifts as they've spent on their guests. (This, I think, is about the dumbest--and rudest--thing I've ever heard with regard to wedding gifts; even if it were true, how on earth would my guests possibly know what I spent on my venue or my catering or on anything else, which is what these people think these guests should be including in their calculations? And doesn't the fact that *true* etiquette reminds us that wedding gifts are truly optional matter anyway?) As my friend Beth says, some people's kids.